Toast Day (Rocket Science and the 2nd Street Bakery)

Today was a toast day. I haven’t baked bread in a long time, but I also haven’t been up to the Bedfellow’s house, either, so I decided to kill two birds with one lazy stone and go up to Western Massachusetts and get some bread from a bakery in the area for breakfast. We were lucky enough to snag one of their last daily loaves before they closed and ran out and we celebrated in proper weekend style with Wilco on the record player, cold brew with coffee ice cubes, and an array of jams, syrups, and toppings for our toast.I hadn’t been to the 2nd Street Bakery, but apparently it occupies a special tear in the fabric on the universe as it’s located on 4th and L Street in Turner’s Falls, MA, which makes no logical sense. Regardless, they make a mean cold brew and their bread game is on point if you can grab a loaf in time. Why spend time heating up the oven when you could be sinking your canines into a slab of blueberry maple braid? It tastes and smells like French toast with all of the texture of fresh country bread.Our toast bar was eclectic, sourcing ingredients from the Bedfellow’s well-curated fridge collection. Fig jam, chipotle maple syrup, fresh strawberry jam, Meyer lemon-salted butter, and sage-blueberry preserves all made the cut, and the bread crisped in the oven as we set the table and prepared our playlists for brunch. The flavors of the bread were sweet, but provided a neutral enough base to soak up the condiments; Plugra butter, Tree’s Knees spicy syrup, Potlicker Jam, and more. Sadie the Siamese sat on the oven and warmed her own buns as we waited for breakfast to begin.Toast is popular, but it isn’t rocket science. There’s definitely a realm between heating up Wonder Bread underneath the broiler and hoofing it at the local brasserie cum coffeehaus for an $8 slice of charred grains, and this is the sweet spot, a half-hour of Yelping and rooting through the fridge. There’s no need for a whimsically misguided New York Times article on how to manufacture the perfect piece of toast. You don’t have to make your own butter to enjoy a fine-ass breakfast. It’s a self-explanatory concept and it’s easy to bring it back home. We’re overthinking it.It was never about the toast, but it’s a damned fine way to start the day.